Josie And The Pussy Cats take a trip to Pago Pago

Chapter 9
Josie Goes Back To Her Roots

Chapter Description: Josie wistfully reminisces.

Josie awoke from her sleep feeling refreshed. She felt vibrant and full of energy this morning!

“It’s probably that I’m looking forward to the performance on the outdoor stage!” she thought and bounced out of bed. She felt alive this morning! It had been years since the last time she could remember being this excited and energetic about getting out of bed.

She took a shower and sang one of her old songs she wrote at the tender age of fourteen and had just gotten serious about a career in the music business. Wow! She couldn’t remember the last time she’d sang that! It was full of flaws, wordy, and too serious to be a catchy tune:

“I was strolling by the stream,

rolling through the hills.

With fields of green

beneath the farmer’s tills…”

she sang, feeling the embarrassment and insecurity of her younger self anew as she sang to a room full of people who chattered and ignored her.

“Tall trees were rising,

tangled in the light,

as the day arrived to meet the night…”

What had she, the fourteen-year-old, thought? It certainly wasn’t a song that the crowd needed to get away from their troubles, that was certain! She gave her younger self a break for not knowing the honest purpose of music was to express thoughts and escape reality for just the smallest of moments.

“As the stream’s washing down,

glossing smooth stones--

Like me, they tumble forward,

on their way home,”

It wasn’t an awful song. The lovely imagery, with its modicum of wordplay, didn’t sell and would have been happier in a book of poems, probably. She finished her shower and moved to the mirror to finish her toilet routine.

She brushed her teeth and remembered how badly that song got rejected. She’d felt depressed and almost gave up, but after a few more rejections, she developed the hard shell needed to deflect the harsh criticism. If she hadn’t met Val and Mel, she surely would’ve given up! The three of them faced the reality that the music industry gave them, and now they were a reasonably successful band.

She applied a dry towel to the fogged mirror to get a better look at her face. What she saw sent a small trill of shock down her spine.

A giant pimple had appeared on her forehead overnight. She remembered all the taunts she’d received as a teen: “Pizza Face”, “Zit Girl” and all that. Her zit would have earned her the nickname “Cyclops” for sure!

“Okay, Josie, calm down, calm down! You can drain this monster blemish and cover it with a powder-based concealer!” she thought as she frantically popped and drained it with a piece of toilet paper. After it dried up and stopped weeping, she continued her makeup routine.

Her face was hot and itchy this morning. Maybe the saltwater in the ocean she swam in with Val and Melody had irritated it?

She applied an oil-free moisturizer to soothe her skin before putting on a base and adding a few layers of enhancement. The whole thing brought back memories of her amateurishly applying makeup as a teenager. It had taken her the better part of a year to perfect the technique with the help of her friends, mother, aunts, and a friendly beautician.

After applying the concealer to the dried-up crater on her forehead, she inspected the results and had to reapply her lipstick as it looked amateurish to her.

The energy and vibrancy she’d felt earlier now became nervous energy, fueled by the worry that her appearance wouldn’t pass muster with her friends and the cold judgment of the public. Images of people tittering behind her back at her bad make-up job flashed through her head.

“Wait a minute! What am I doing?” she exclaimed. Forcing herself to relax and calm down, she examined her feelings; might it be she experienced these emotions because of all the reminiscing she went through this morning?

She was a grownup and not an insecure teen-aged bundle of nerves, worries, and rampaging hormones! She pulled herself together with adult maturity.

This helped her to calm down. She then dressed up in her costume to save time at the music hall as they were going to the new outdoor stage to set up and practice. She thought of all the times she’d done this as a young teen and thought it funny that she’d given up the practice when she went to high school.

Her costume felt loose in some areas; might that might be because of all the exercise she got keeping up with Val and Mel yesterday? Their childish, rambunctious energy had her moving on the beach yesterday! Also, she remembered that she’d missed a meal or two because of her schedule and that could account for the rest of the weight loss.

“Well, whatever! Time to go greet the gang!” she said aloud to the room and stopped by the breakfast counter on her way out for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a glass of juice to fill her growling tummy before leaving the hotel for the music hall. Feeling happy and energetic, she skipped her way there.

She hadn’t skipped to anywhere from the age of ten, but that didn’t occur to her.

Upon entering the music hall, she went to the stage to help pack up their instruments and electronics. She saw Val and Melody on stage. She capered playfully up to greet them and mentally noticed her loose garment brushing against her inner thighs.

“Hi, Val! Hi Mel! Good morning!”

Val closed the clasps on her guitar case before turning around to greet Josie. Melody let out a muffled “morning” with her upper torso inside a large case that she secured the smaller pieces of her drum kit.

Her job finished, Val turned to greet Josie and said, “good morning, Jo-” before gasping at Josie, “Um, are you feeling alright, Josie? Your face-”

“Is there something on my face?” asked Josie. She pulled out a compact from her purse to examine herself in its mirror.

She gasped.

“Ohmygawd!” she blurted out at seeing the many blemishes that had broken out on her way to the music hall. Acne now covered her entire face!

“Are those pimples?” asked Val as she gently put a finger on one and carefully felt it. “I haven’t seen such an acute case of acne since I was a teenager!”

Melody pulled her head out of her carrying case and came over to see what the ruckus was.

“Holy zits, Batman! You look like a pepperoni pizza! Tee-” her giggle died in her throat as the seriousness of the situation hit her.

Val looked at her and asked, “Did you do this, Mel? It’s not funny! How’s Josie going to perform with this much acne on her face? She looks like the surface of the moon! Oh, no offense, Josie!”

“None taken, Val. Mel, did you do something to me while I slept?”

“No! No! I swear! Whatever caused this, it wasn’t me!” she strongly protested. Her serious tone and lack of quips or merriment convinced Josie and Val of her truthfulness.

"Let's go see my makeup technician. She can do wonders!" said Melody, as she grabbed Josie’s hand and practically pulled her to her dressing room.

In Melody’s dressing room, the middle-aged matron was having a catnap. She was on standby in case the performers needed any attention and came instantly awake.

“Can you help Josie? Something made her face break out overnight!” said a worried Melody.

The matron arose and gently pushed Josie into her padded barber chair. She cleaned off the remains of Josie’s makeup with cold cream and scrutinized her face.

“This is a horrible case of acne! How old are you, girl?”

“I’m twenty.”

“I’ve only seen it this bad in girls fourteen or fifteen! Are you sure you’re twenty?”

“Yes, we had cake and everything! I’m twenty!” protested Josie.

The matron pushed Melody out of the dressing room. “Go back to your work, girl. It helps nothing to have you gawking!”

“But I’m worried about Josie!”

“You’ll find out soon enough. Now go!” She said as the door closed on Melody’s face.

Turning back to Josie, she barked, “Stand up and hold your arms out, girl.”

Josie did as told. The matron examined her body and tugged on the loose parts of her costume.

“What are your measurements, girl?”

“My measurements?”

“Bust, waist, and hip sizes. What are they?” she queried as she made a mark on the wall behind the top of Josie’s head before measuring its height with a cloth tape measure. She then measured Josie’s bust waist, waist, and hips and wrote them down on a notepad along with her height.

“Well?”

“Um, five feet, four inches, 35, 26, 36.”

“Girl, you are five feet exactly, and 32, 24, 34. Don’t worry about the acne, it’ll clear up in a few minutes after you lose 2 more inches and your measurements won’t matter!”

“What are you saying?” said Josie as she looked at her pock-marked face in the mirror and noticed that her blemishes were clearing up.

“That you’re growing younger. How much younger you’ll get is anyone’s guess. You’re fourteen now and will be thirteen in a few minutes!”

“What? How did this happen?”

Josie watched as her face began clearing; the swollen red blemishes seemed to be slowly shrinking and winking out. She also noted that her costume had become too large for her as it did when Melody wished them back to age thirteen.

“Did powerful memories of your youth flash through your head when you woke up this morning?”

“Yes, I vividly remembered what it was like when I was fourteen.”

“Hmm, you can’t be much older than thirteen now… AH! Your face has cleared up. I’ll bet you’ve just gone backward through puberty!”

Josie’s costume was so loose on her body now that she could put her hand through a leg hole and verify it.

“It’s all smooth down there! How can I stop it?” The high-pitched, childlike quality of her voice surprised her.

“You must stop wishing to return to the past and look forward to the future. Getting married, becoming a mother, raising a child, getting older. That’s the only way!”

Josie thought of Alan and making love to him. She thought of them being married and having several beautiful blond-haired children, then she thought of her and Alan as a cheerful old couple surrounded by their children and grandchildren.

She immediately shot up to her normal age and filled out her costume perfectly.

“I’m back! How can I ever thank you?”

“You’re not out of the woods yet, girl! You are wavering on the cusp of desiring to be a woman or a child. Whenever you have strong reminiscing about your past, you’ll regress in age. You must picture yourself as a grown woman when this happens or you’ll most likely end up sucking on a pacifier and wetting your diapers!”

As if on cue, Josie’s mind recalled past remembrances and emotions of her as a little girl pretending to have tea with a stuffed teddy bear. Her body responded and reverted obediently as she regressed faster this time! The face in the mirror went from adult to teen softness and began rounding with the chubby innocence of youth.

“Focus!” yelled the matron, breaking her reverie. Josie started and thought strongly of her and Alan going through life together. She returned to her normal age just as quickly as she had regressed.

"How long must I fight these urges to regress?"

“A few days, a few weeks. Who can tell? The quickest way is to get married and have a child. Remember always to look forward to a happy life as an adult.”

“Oh, okay! Thank you!”

“Now sit in that chair and I’ll do your makeup for you.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

After leaving Melody’s dressing room feeling refreshed, confident, and zit free, she went back to the gang as they finished breaking down their stage set and props. Melody spotted her and yelled, “Josie! Are you okay?” as Josie came up to her friend to give her a warm hug.

Melody’s genuine concern for her friend was all Val needed to accept her not being at fault for what happened to Josie. She joined the two, making it a group hug.

"It's okay,
 Melody! I see now that it’s truly not your fault at all. I just need to be more confident about myself and everything will work out," said Josie with a smile. Inside, she felt closer to her friends than she’d ever felt before.

After explaining her new affliction and how she could counter it, she felt confident the gang would be there for her and smiled warmly.

“If you see me visibly regressing, just give me a nudge! I’ll correct it in no time at all,” she reassured them.

Little Alexandra gurgled and cooed at everyone present from her baby carrier. Josie picked her up and tickled her belly.

“You also need to grow up, too, Alexandra! Just try not to be so mean to everyone this time, okay?”

Alexandra made burbling noises that sounded like “ME? What did I do?” and her smiling baby face took on a more serious tone, making her look somewhat indignant.

Or was it just gas? She farted loudly and smiled.

The assembled group shared a collective laugh.

End Chapter Nine.